


Checking In

by SomewhereApart



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, The Underworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 02:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17071505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhereApart/pseuds/SomewhereApart
Summary: When one is amongst the dead, the occasional reassurances are necessary.





	Checking In

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Gentle Peck: Canon OQ

The Underworld is chaos, and unease. Guilt, and survival. A constant sort of alertness and awareness, a wondering which painful ghost will pop up next and from where.

It wears on her. Eats at her. She tries to keep a brave face for her boy, for her family. For him, too, he supposes. But in the quiet moments, few and rare as they are, he can see how deeply this place affects her. How much it troubles her.

Those are the moments he draws her away from the others, pulls her close, and wraps his arms solidly around her.

“Are you alright?” he asks her, and she nods. She always nods. She could be tear-streaked and breathless, and he thinks she might tell him she was fine. Everything is fine.

He wonders if she’ll finally let herself be something other than fine when they escape this place. When they’re home. But he thinks sometimes perhaps her defenses are as much for her own self as they are for the impressions of others, so he doesn’t push. Even times like this, when he knows she’s speaking false.

He simply tells her, “I’m here,” and “I love you,” and presses the gentlest of kisses to her soft lips. He doesn’t move to deepen the embrace, aware as he is (as he knows she is, too) that her son is only steps away. But he repeats it, another sweet peck, and another, one more for good measure as she sighs and melts against him, tension oozing from her, her body pressing infinitesimally closer to his.

When they break, she leans into him, forehead to the cloth of his jacket, and shifts his hold on her, draws one arm up to cradle around her shoulders. For a moment, they just stand together and breathe, her back rising and falling in deep, steady pulls. Then she presses her nose into him briefly (or perhaps that was a kiss?), and steps back, offering him a reassuring smile and linking their fingers as they rejoin the group.

She looks a bit less troubled. A touch calmer.

This place is a worrisome one, an unkind one, especially to those with as many demons as the woman he loves, but Robin is glad of one thing: they’re not here alone, not any of them, and certainly not her. They have each other for strength, and that is enough.


End file.
